Dezeen » PARTYhttp://www.dezeen.com
architecture and design magazineTue, 31 Mar 2015 20:00:13 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Glowing 3D-printed characters explore LA in Cut Copy's music videohttp://www.dezeen.com/2014/03/02/glowing-3d-printed-characters-explore-la-in-cut-copys-music-video/
http://www.dezeen.com/2014/03/02/glowing-3d-printed-characters-explore-la-in-cut-copys-music-video/#commentsSun, 02 Mar 2014 12:00:01 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=423296Dezeen Music Project: a pair of miniature 3D-printed figures wander around Los Angeles in this stop-motion music video by creative studio PARTY for Australian electronic band Cut Copy's track We Are Explorers. "We came up with the idea based on the title and lyric 'we are explorers'," PARTY creative director and founder Masashi Kawamura told […]

"We came up with the idea based on the title and lyric 'we are explorers'," PARTY creative director and founder Masashi Kawamura told Dezeen. "We wanted to create a story of explorers but wanted create the journey in a never seen before way, so we decided to create 200 figurines using 3D printing and film them as stop-motion animation."

The video directed by Masashi Kawamura, Qanta Shimizu and Aramique Krauthamer for Cut Copy follows the tiny characters as they navigate the streets: encountering litter, scaling mail boxes and collecting objects found along their journey.

For the stop-motion sequence, the two hundred figurines were created on a Stratasys 1200es printer with UV reactive filament.

The team used handheld black lights to create the luminosity during the seven days of filming in Los Angeles, then exaggerated the brightness slightly during post production.

"We used UV reactive filament to print the figurines on the 3D printer, so they glowed under the black light," said Kawamura.

Once they had finished, PARTY made the files used to create the video open source so others could try it out.

"We wanted to create an experience bigger than just the video," explained Kawamura, "so we decided to release all the 3D data and storyboard for free on Bit Torrent, so the people can actually recreate the whole video if they want to."

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2014/03/02/glowing-3d-printed-characters-explore-la-in-cut-copys-music-video/feed/4Animated music video for Japanese band SOUR created using spinning CDshttp://www.dezeen.com/2013/11/10/music-video-for-japanese-band-sour-using-spinning-compact-discs/
http://www.dezeen.com/2013/11/10/music-video-for-japanese-band-sour-using-spinning-compact-discs/#commentsSun, 10 Nov 2013 06:00:15 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=383398Dezeen Music Project: designers Masashi Kawamura and Kota Iguchi made all the animations in this music video for Japanese band SOUR's single Music Is Life using rotating compact discs. Kawamura of creative agency PARTY and Iguchi of design studio Tymote used the CDs to create a kind of phenakistoscope, a nineteenth-century animation device consisting of a […]

Kawamura of creative agency PARTY and Iguchi of design studio Tymote used the CDs to create a kind of phenakistoscope, a nineteenth-century animation device consisting of a series of still images that appear to move when rotated.

"The idea came from the lyrics," Kawamura told Dezeen. "The song is about life and the way it cycles like the rhythm of music. That made me think of using CDs as the surface to create animations on."

Traditionally, a phenakistoscope would have to be viewed through small gaps to create the illusion of movement and prevent the images from blurring into each other. Kawamura and Iguchi managed to create the same effect by syncing the speed of the rotating discs with the frame rate of their video camera.

"The slits on a phenakistoscope simulate flashes of light and create a kind of strobe effect called persistence of vision," Kawamura explained. "In our case, we used the frame rate of the camera to recreate this effect without the slits. We shot the film at 15 fps and filmed 17 frame animations to synchronise with the 105 BPM of the song."

Kawamura and Iguchi created animations on 189 CDs to make the video. They raised the money for the project on crowd-funding website Kickstarter, and backers who pledged $70 or more will receive one of the discs used in the shoot, signed by the band.

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2013/11/10/music-video-for-japanese-band-sour-using-spinning-compact-discs/feed/2"I think we were the first in history to motion-capture our own sperm"http://www.dezeen.com/2013/04/01/i-think-we-were-the-first-in-history-to-motion-capture-our-own-sperm/
http://www.dezeen.com/2013/04/01/i-think-we-were-the-first-in-history-to-motion-capture-our-own-sperm/#commentsMon, 01 Apr 2013 09:00:37 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=303598Dezeen and MINI World Tour: in the second part of our interview at Design Indaba in Cape Town, Masashi Kawamura, partner at creative agency PARTY, explains the process behind a television commercial he made featuring dancing sperm. Kawamura describes how he was approached by a Japanese music television company called Space Shower TV to produce […]

Dezeen and MINI World Tour: in the second part of our interview at Design Indaba in Cape Town, Masashi Kawamura, partner at creative agency PARTY, explains the process behind a television commercial he made featuring dancing sperm.

Kawamura describes how he was approached by a Japanese music television company called Space Shower TV to produce a commercial for their Music Saves Tomorrow campaign, a response to the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit the country in 2011. "There were a couple of other directors working on it and they were doing very serious, dramatic, emotional commercials," Kawamura explains. "But I wanted to do something more fun, just to bring back the smiles to the people."

All Kawamura had to work with was the Music Saves Tomorrow tagline. "For me, 'tomorrow' meant the next generation and the children, but I didn't want to show kids in a TV commercial," he says. "So I was thinking if there was any other way to visualise these seeds of tomorrow and I thought, well, what if I went a step further and not show kids but show sperm?"

In the 60-second commercial that Kawamura came up with, animated sperm dance in formation to music. Kawamura describes the unusual lengths he and his team went to to create it. "We looked around and there was an all-male crew, so we decided to collect our sperm and bring it to a bio lab," he says. "We scanned it and motion-captured our sperm and used that data to create the animations. I think nobody else has done that in history."

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2013/04/01/i-think-we-were-the-first-in-history-to-motion-capture-our-own-sperm/feed/1"We wanted to bring the family portrait into the next century"http://www.dezeen.com/2013/03/31/we-wanted-to-bring-the-family-portrait-to-the-next-century/
http://www.dezeen.com/2013/03/31/we-wanted-to-bring-the-family-portrait-to-the-next-century/#commentsSun, 31 Mar 2013 09:00:38 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=303587Dezeen and MINI World Tour: in latest video from Design Indaba in Cape Town, Masashi Kawamura of Japanese creative agency PARTY talks about the pop-up 3D photo booth he ran in Tokyo last year. The Omote 3D Shashinkan project, which we featured on Dezeen last year, gave customers the opportunity to buy a 3D-printed model of […]

The Omote 3D Shashinkan project, which we featured on Dezeen last year, gave customers the opportunity to buy a 3D-printed model of themselves or their family. "We wanted to find a new way to innovate the form of the family portrait and bring it to the next century," Kawamura explains. "What happens is, when you come, we take a full 3D scan [of your body] using our portable scanners. People could actually bring back home their miniature figurines, instead of a 2D portrait that you normally get."

PARTY used a colour 3D printer to produce the detailed models, which ranged from 10cm to 20cm high, but Kawamura believes there is still a lot of room for the technology to improve. "3D printing for me is a very exciting medium to play around with, but I think it's still in a very early phase of development," he says. "After doing this project we've learnt a lot of technical difficulties and a lot of things that could be done better in terms of technologies and also the materials that we use."

But Kawamura is optimistic about the future possibilities of 3D printing. "Everything, I think, will get better in the next year or two; there'll be significant improvements," he says. "Just the idea that anyone could manufacture their own product is very, very interesting."